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The Function of Kings in Anglo-Saxon England

As I mentioned in my previous post
concerning social organization in Anglo-Saxon England, the idea of kings as we
know them today, all powerful rulers who hand down edicts across an empire, did
not exist. Kings during this period were closer along the lines of tribal
leaders who ruled a larger than usual amount of subjects and land. So now, I want to briefly outline the basic
idea and evolution of Anglo-Saxon kings.

Germani tribesmen' customs stressed loyalty
to their lords. Sometimes they were led by a hereditary king, though this was
usually not the case. Germani warriors were often led into battle by elected chiefs.
Since oath keeping and vows of vengeance were heavily interrelated, this meant—or
we can assume as much anyways—that those most likely to be elected were honored
warriors who regularly maintained oaths of allegiance as well as vengeance.

By
the seventh century, however, this tribal system was largely on the social periphery.
Kingdoms as we loosely would know them today began to emerge and with them
kings who held sway over administered districts (Blair 13, The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction). Even then,
however, there were dozens of kings, each battling one another for influence
and power.

Nevertheless,
though, what we see during this period (the early 600s) is the gradual
emergence of power-relations; specifically, of states coming out of the flux.
Part of this flux meant a constantly shifting wielding of power. The famed
historian Bede, for instance, recounts the existence of so-called ‘over-kings’
whose positions, though usually short lived, marshaled much of the Anglo-Saxon
people under a single rule (14). But it is with these over-kings that the
conception of kings as we know them today emerge, as territorial kings merely
controlled a limited territory often without anything in the way of civil
society.

It
would not be until the 9th and 10th centuries, when the
House of Wessex rose to unite much of England, that anything like a cultural
identity could be seen. It was only during this time where much in the way of
anything could be undertaken on the part of kings; now directing large amounts
of land and required to balance matters both military and civil (such as partitioning
with the Normans and monastic reform as well as generating a means of legal
settlement and tax collecting). All though the House of Wessex would ultimately
fall in the second Norman invasion, the groundwork that it laid for an English
identity would preserve for over a thousand years, as subsequent generations
inherited and tweaked the various civil and military structures bequeathed to
them by their forefathers. Part of this, of course, would be the creation of an
Absolute Monarchy, and the various bits of discord that such a regime would ultimately
have on civil matters. But, as with all structures, it had its roots in the
Anglo-Saxon period.

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Lately, I was browsing around online and found another handy resource for aspiring medievalists.

Enter, Western Michigan University's Medieval Institute!

The site has links to an extensive book shop, scholarly journals, as well as a free download. See below for links.

General listing: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medievalpress/
Index of titles available for purchase: http://www.wmich.edu/medievalpublications/all-titles
The 'Medieval Globe' book(s): http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/ (Click on title(s) for free download)

Okay, that is all for now. Sometime soon I think that I would like to organize all of my resource links so that I, as well as you, have a concrete listing of reliable resources. Until then, we shall have to make due.